How Logistics changes lives: Houston Chronicle follows up on tiny home move

On November 11, Gateway Logistics was featured in the Houston Chronicle for our contribution to the wonderful Big Heroes, Tiny Homes project. Not only is it incredible to see the community momentum around this initiative, but also to see the fascinating underbelly of the transportation industry highlighted.

We hope content like this excites the interest of newcomers who like to solve complex problems, give back to the community, and in the long-term, innovate even better systems for getting essentials (like homes) where they need to go.

Read the published content on the Houston Chronicle by Staff Writer David Taylor, November 11, 2022

We have shared some content from the article: "Their third house earned the attention of another donor through a Houston Chronicle story about the program. The story caught the eye of George Smith, owner of Gateway Logistics Group who reached out to Gaylord to learn more. Smith is very involved in the community and a large supporter of law enforcement and veterans.?

“Mr. Smith came out here to visit and see the program himself and was just super gracious and such a nice guy,” Gaylord said.?

Smith asked his transportation operations carrier manager Todd Williams to investigate and see how they could help Gaylord and the students.?

“They came out and looked at it and gave us some pointers on future designs, but early on, recognized that the normal techniques that they would use would not apply to our project,” Gaylord said.?

Instead, Williams began digging into the transportation side of the built homes.?

“They were getting some quotes that were pretty outrageously priced,” he said. That prompted him to begin making some cold calls himself to find out who the players were in the house moving game.?

“At Gateway we primarily move specialized heavy-haul cargoes, not houses,” he said.?

He found The Sipe Boys who have been moving over-size structures in southeast Texas since 1957.?

“I talked with owner Kathy Sipe and explained the story and she gave us a really good rate,” Williams said.?

Gateway took care of the transportation costs for the school, a real blessing and relief for Gaylord.?

“Up until the story came out in the paper and George (Smith) reached out to us, I had no idea how we were going to get it moved,” the teacher said.?

Jessica Sipe Sechelski, operations manager for The Sipe Boys, LLC, said they were ecstatic to help with the move.?

“We were excited to be part of something like this,” she said.?

They made a visit to the school to figure out a way to load it and pull it out the correct way.?

“There's just a lot more to it than just throwing a trailer underneath,” she said.?

Gaylord watched with awe as the process got underway.?

The process for moving required jacking the house up, setting the axles under the house, putting I-beams on top of the axles, chaining and bolting it all together and then dropping the house onto the axles.?

“Then they put a trailer hitch on the front of it and were ready to drive it out of here,” Gaylord said. The process took a little more than three hours, but it was a full month before they could move it because of muddy conditions at the site.?

“It’s really something to see. They’ve got their little inventory of materials and supplies. They just custom build a trailer for whatever it is they pick up,” the teacher said. “It’s the coolest thing.”?

The summer drought ended with several weeks of rain the first part of August and that delayed the move, but once it dried up and was safe, Gaylord said it went off without any worries.?

Clint Sipe, the co-owner of The Sipe Boys, worked with TxDOT to coordinate the route, verify bridge heights, and acquire the permits.?

“We also had to hire police escorts to avoid any issues and we didn’t have to use a bucket truck on this delivery,” his sister Jessica said.?

“They (Gateway) orchestrated the move and were kind enough to write the check which was amazing,” Gaylord said.?

The site in Liberty County now has seven houses built from students at Summer Creek, Kingwood, and Kingwood Park high schools.?

“They are preparing the sites for 30 more homes,” the teacher said.?

Operation Finally Home is designing the layout of the 100-acre site and will build a community center for the veterans where they can be fed and hold meetings and events.?

“It’s really gratifying to see what these students have done,” Williams said, “and James is just a phenomenal human being. He’s infectious with his enthusiasm for engineering. It’s fun to watch those students just get hooked.”?

Williams said they can’t wait until the new community center is built in the development.?

“We want to take out a bunch of our employees out there to volunteer and maybe do a big spaghetti dinner for the employees and veterans,” he said.?

He hopes they can also continue to partner up with The Sipe Boys and try to get the cost down for more moves in the future.?

“The way they take the trailer and maneuver it right above the blocking and then lower it on the blocking avoids having to use cranes or forklifts to move these things around,” Williams said.?

He also said it was much safer and avoids claims or damage to the homes that the students spent a lot of hours building.?"